Comments

Yeo: “The way I see that is that it’s a great hit and we should be on the power play. They come in and they instigate and the next thing you know we lose a player for the game.
”
Richards: “To me it looked like he targeted his head. That was a direct blow, and the initial contact was his head. Our guy is going to be on the shelf for a little bit now. That hit really affects our team in a big way. I saw it the way the referees did and I can’t imagine why they would see it differently.”

Definitely good, clean, shoulder-to-shoulder hit. I can barely believe what a homer that announcer is in the Columbus feed.

Posted by
NHLJeff
from Pens fan in Chicago, IL on 04/14/13 at 10:34 AM ET

Columbus is terrible for watching hockey. They’ll complain about anything. They got a guy for a year that was moderately impartial and they canned him.
That being said…
I’m not sure that was a clean hit. But I couldn’t tell if it wad to the head either.

Having talked about homerism…
Yeo talks like it was the awesomest thing ever then sounds like he’s going to cry because the evil refs took away his borderline dirty bastard, talking about investigating like it was on false charges and was all a set up.

Another case of a player putting himself in a vulnerable position, and paying the price for it. Minimal head contact, if any, and to say that Coyle targeted anything is a joke. Dubinsky, and anyone else that instigates a fight after a clean hit, should have been the one to receive the match penalty.

Posted by
Hootinani
from the parade following Babs out of town on 04/14/13 at 11:22 AM ET

Anisimov was vulnerable because he didn’t protect himself. Did you expect Coyle to just let you skate by? Only thing wrong with that hit is Anisimov’s lack of awareness. I’m surprised we see it as often as we do in the NHL. Not in this case, but people also try to avoid hits at the last second and get injured because they get their leg caught in a knee-to-knee and the boards. Press yourself against the boards and take the hit. Protect yourself and players won’t get ejected for fighting after a big hit.

Posted by
Tony Perkis
from Drinking at Robert's Lounge with Billy Batts on 04/14/13 at 12:23 PM ET

yeah I watched and rewatched and his elbow’s down, his feet stayed on the ice, he leads with the body and the hit wasn’t even all that brutal. Though to say it was “shoulder to shoulder” is a little absurd as he obviously clocked him pretty solidly in the head, apparently enough to concuss him (just a guess). You can actually pause the video at the moment he’s blasting through his head.

So I think the legality of this comes down to a couple things being weighed against each other. Anisimov had his head down, no doubt. So not only did he not see the hit coming and brace himself, but his head was actually low which meant any legal “shoulder” check is going to go into his head. With that said, if you watch in slow-mo, Anisimov does not move his head position whatsoever the entire time. So in the league’s eyes, the onus may in fact be on the hitter to not “target” the head, whether the receiving player sees him coming or not.

At the least, I understand how the refs would feel they HAVE to call a major on this, especially with Anisimov leaving the game. But if we’re talking about “justice”, how Dubinsky doesn’t get an instigator is beyond me. On a play like this you should either get your lengthy PP or get to try and beat the guy up, but not both.

i think a similar analogy is when the league cracked down on boarding calls, everyone started turning their backs at the boards… basically saying “go ahead and board me if you dare”.

the problem is that you can’t simply leave boarding calls and head shots unaddressed. you have to draw a line somewhere and no matter where that line is drawn, there will be plays that stray that line and people angry about it. kind of a lose-lose situation.